


all the poets are writing memoirs, and i'm still singing songs

by ytka_hjonkkk



Series: mcyt fics :0 [4]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Fluff, Gen, Hopeful Ending, How Do I Tag, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, Mental Breakdown, Minecraft, Minecraft but IRL, Not Happy, Panic Attacks, Sad GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Sleep, Soft Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Songfic, after imprisonment, dream is fucked up, ish, leave me alone idfk how to tag, sapnap is a good friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:21:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29906556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ytka_hjonkkk/pseuds/ytka_hjonkkk
Summary: the gravestone read:DreamBrother, Son, Friend1999 - ????Always in our hearts."dream's not dead, dude.""our dream is."orgogy wakes up from a month and half nap and has a breakdown over dream being in prison, him and sapnap have introspective chat and hug
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Georgenotfound & Dream
Series: mcyt fics :0 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2120814
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	all the poets are writing memoirs, and i'm still singing songs

**Author's Note:**

> title from 'a different age' by current joy cause im actually obsessed w that song rn
> 
> this is kind of shit but idc
> 
> also ik this is like really late and irrelevant to the plot now but idgaf i just want fluffy and to ignore the whole revival shit cause thats too complex for my tiny brain
> 
> tw is mentioned child murder, self harm (ish), panic attacks, disassociation and general sadness

black. 

grey? 

_ lights. _

george groaned, his face scrunched up and eyes still shut. he couldn’t quite be bothered to move yet, but he supposed he was probably awake now. shit.

his breathing was still slow, as steady as in sleep. the warmth in his body kept him tethered to the bed, and he just lay there, listening to the muted birdsong around him for a while. what time was it? not past noon, surely. he had been sleeping fairly regularly for the past week (5 hours a night was not enough, the traitorous voice in his head whispered), so his sleep schedule should be matched with everybody else’s. nobody could yell at him for sleeping through things if he barely slept through the night, to be fair.

eventually, when the sun shifted through the gap in his curtains and a shard of light fell directly on his face, he sighed and cracked his eyes open with a wince. the light through the gap was golden and orange, and it took him an embarrassingly long time to quite clock what that meant. he blinked at it for a second, before lurching up into a sitting position and staring at the window. he scrambled up, almost falling off the bed in his haste. yanking his curtains open, he froze up completely at the sight outside.

the sun was setting, the shadow of light behind the treeline only just vanishing to the tides of dark. 

a choked noise escaped his throat.

surely he couldn’t have slept that long again. 

he thought that he was over this, the gaps in his life, days and weeks spent defenseless and goddamn  _ useless _ in his bed. he thought it was fucking  _ over.  _

blindly, he grabbed for his communicator on the nightstand, before realising with a brisk inhale of panic that it was gone. he whipped his head around to stare at the spot it was in, the spot it  _ should  _ have been, but there wasn’t even an imprint in the dust coating the surface, beside the frantic swipes of his fingers. but he knew he put it there before he fell into his bed, he was sure of it. how long had it been gone?

how long had he been  _ asleep _ ?

he hadn’t slept for longer than a day in  _ years,  _ definitely not since they created the server. sure, sometimes he slept through the day, through important events that maybe he should have attended, but not longer than 24 hours. 

but for dust to settle like that, it had to have been at least a week. he had done an adrenaline fuelled cleaning session not a day ago (a day before he fell asleep?), so it wasn’t unlikely that dust would settle that quickly. but he also didn’t know, was stuck being confused and disorientated and quite possibly a month further into the future than he last remembered, and someone stole his  _ fucking  _ communicator .

scowling at the nightstand, he balled his hands into fists. with a glance down at his attire- a rumpled but perfectly presentable jumper and jeans that he must have slept in- he threw the covers on his bed back into place and stalked out his bedroom with a glint of ambition in his eyes.

his house was pretty much the same as he had left it, excluding the lack of communicator, with the skylights left exposed and illuminating the dust suspended in the air. christ, he needed to open a window. 

while he fiddled with the latch, he sent an appraising eye over his belongings, cataloguing everything he knew should be there. it seemed everything was in order, but it felt wrong. somebody had been in his house, and he didn’t even know about it. somebody had seen him so vulnerable, and who knew if it was even someone he trusted? he could only hope it had been sapnap or dream (the man had done dodgy things, he knew that, but he could only cling onto the hope that the man he knew was still in there somewhere), or maybe karl or quackity at a push. 

but what if it wasn’t?

growling harshly, he finally swung open the window and took a deep breath, savouring a break from the mustiness that he hadn’t even realised was affecting him. he spun back on the ball of his foot, and glared at the door in apparent distaste. he was going to have to go talk to people, wasn’t he?

ruffling his hair, (was it longer than before, or was he imagining things?) he took a deep breath and pushed open the door, beginning the trek to l’manburg. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


if he was being perfectly honest, not much had changed since he had gone to sleep a few hours ago (days? weeks?). even as the sun finally sunk below the horizon, the torches and various buildings lit up the prime path, patchwork and rickety as it was. 

nobody was there, though. that was certainly unusual. even at night, there was usually somebody running around, even if it was just tommy and tubbo preparing for war again.

but the outskirts of the crater that was l’manburg were empty.

sapnap. 

he needed to find sapnap. where did he live, again? hadn’t he said something about moving in with karl and quackity? due west from here, he thought.

he stared at the barren emptiness of the land, the strange atmosphere of not-quite-right that hung in the air, like something was missing.

someone?

george shivered and turned away.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


the sun was rising, now. where had the night gone? 

he was at sapnap’s house, though. that was good. he didn’t remember walking there, but he certainly had the lethargy to count for it. 

he looked at it. it was pretty. simple, but nice. there was a flag with a mushroom that made him smile, oddly reminiscent of his own house. he wondered if sapnap had been thinking of him. probably not. people didn’t seem to like him very much.

raising a hand up to the door, he paused and looked at the fist. it was shaking. why? 

he could hear laughing from inside, could identify sapnap and quackity’s voices. they were fairly distinguishable, to be fair. 

quackity didn’t like him, did he? quackity said everything was his fault because he slept so often. quackity might not even be wrong. maybe if he had just done things like he was supposed to, the world could turn normally and everybody could live, all happy-like. maybe that was selfish, to think people’s livelihoods hung around him, but george couldn’t find it within himself to give a single shit. and he supposed it probably didn’t count as selfishness if you hated yourself for it.

the hand hovering above the door was still shaking. it wasn’t even that cold out. was it? he couldn’t tell. he couldn’t feel much at all, actually. there was a distinct lack of anything in him, be it warmth or thought or emotion. 

he just  _ was.  _ wasn’t that what everybody thought of him anyway? docile and just  _ there,  _ not quite a real person, rather a show horse that nobody needed anymore. 

“george?” 

he looked up, lowering his hand. 

sapnap stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the warm light from inside. there were still voices from inside, but the man just stood in the doorway staring at george with an unreadable expression. 

“you’re awake.” his voice was monotone, but with a spark of happiness resting somewhere underneath. 

“that i am.” george spoke quietly, words clipped and voice still slightly croaky from sleep. 

sapnap looked at him for a second, with something akin to sympathy in his eyes. abruptly, the younger man sprung out of his house and engulfed his friend in a hug, arms wrapped tightly around his neck. he almost sunk into the embrace, despite george being considerably shorter and quite possibly incapable of holding him up, his head leant on the man’s shoulder. 

after a second of rigid hesitation, george reciprocated, wrapping his arms under sapnap’s and clinging to the man with apparent desperation. he buried his face into sapnap’s chest, breathing heavily. 

they stayed like that in silence for a few minutes, the only sounds being their own heartbeats and the raucous laughter of karl and quackity from inside. 

eventually, george spoke, mumbling into his friend’s chest. 

“how long has it been?” 

a few moments of silence passed, wherein sapnap pushed his face into george’s shoulder, and sighed deep into the cloth. 

“a month and a half, odd.”

george’s breath hitched and he bit his lip, scrunching his face up against sapnap’s chest in an effort not to cry. it shouldn’t have been that long. he should have been over this. he  _ should.  _ a month was a long fucking time to miss, a lot of time to let people down and a lot of things to fuck over with his absence. 

“oh.” he muttered, voice small. 

sapnap brought his hand up to the back of george’s head, cradling it into his chest while taking his own off his friend’s shoulder and staring straight ahead into the night. 

“that’s not-” he stopped, apparently considering his words, “that’s not all.”

“what else could there possibly be?”

pause.

“do you want to come in?”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


sapnap couldn’t say he was surprised when george showed up at his door, hair all mussed up and skin blotchy. i mean, he knew the man had been asleep for a long time, the likes of which sapnap hadn’t seen him do for years. 

his fiancés didn’t though, and it was their expressions when he brought george inside that brought it all into perspective for him. 

george was leaning on him heavily, face streaked with tears and clothes rumpled. it certainly wasn’t a pretty sight for a man he had told them was ‘away on holiday’. 

“dude, what the fuck?” alex was the first to speak after george settled into the sofa opposite sapnap, staring at him with a mix of concern and anger, “where have you been?”

george hesitated, mouth opening and closing a few times before glancing at sapnap, who nodded reassuringly. he stared at the floor, and chose his words carefully. 

“i was asleep.” 

there was a silence, before karl giggled, looking at the dishevelled man incredulously. 

“gogy, it’s been a month! where have you actually been?” 

“asleep, i told you.” 

“for a month?” 

“yes.”

the two men looked at him carefully, like he was a madman who might break on contact or too harsh a word. 

“people can’t sleep for a month-” 

“ _ he  _ can.” sapnap interrupted his fiancé, sending a warning glare his way. “it just happens sometimes with george. don’t know why.”

quackity sniffed, eyes narrowing. 

“so is that what you do? you just say fuck it, i’m just going to go to sleep for a month and let everybody else deal with dream?” 

“he can’t control it-”

“what do you mean, deal with dream?” 

the two spoke at the same time, sapnap turning his head with a wince to look at george, who looked quite positively terrified. 

“deal with dream?” he prompted again, when nobody replied. 

“dream’s in prison, george,” karl said, gently, “he has been for a week or two.” 

george wasn’t breathing. 

it didn’t look like he was doing anything at all, just staring frozen at sapnap’s fiancé. with his back ramrod straight, contrasting to the lazy dependency of before, his hands had stopped shaking in favour of sitting motionless in his lap. sapnap couldn’t figure out which was worse. 

george spoke after a second, words coming out in desperate spews. 

“oh, oh god, oh- he didn’t- did he? did he kill tubbo? with the- the room and the disks and the- did he?”

“no.” sapnap interrupted fluidly, and watched george sigh in relief, melting into the chair. 

“he tried to, though.” quackity snapped, looking spitefully at the floor. 

he was pretty sure he could hear george’s breaths, now. they were rattling through his chest in quick succession as the man stared at his fiancé in shock. 

“you- really? he really tried?” george spoke quietly, his voice small and weak. he couldn’t make it stop, couldn’t speak louder if he tried. 

“yeah. took killing him twice to make him stop.”

sapnap stared at his friend, who stared right back at him. grimacing, he nodded slightly in confirmation , and watched george deflate. it was like all the air in his body rushed out at once, and he brought a hand up to cover his face. 

“i don’t-” he stopped, moving his hand over his mouth and shutting his eyes for a second before removing it. “i have to- i have to go do something.” 

"wait." sapnap said, lifting a hand. 

george stared. "what?"

"do you want your communicator? we took it in case dream messaged you."

"did he?"

sapnap shifted. "no." 

"then no, thank you."

with that, george sprung to his feet and stumbled towards the door, knocking over a vase on his way. the shards landed around his feet, probably in his shoes, but he only spared it a quick glare and a muttered swear before breezing past it. a second later, and he was gone, the door left open with the sun rising outside. 

sapnap looked at the door, aching to follow his friend, but he needed time. 

“sapnap?”

his attention was brought back to the room, head swivelling to face his fiancés, who were staring at him. 

“aren’t you gonna…” karl motioned with his hand to the door, looking at the man imploringly. “aren’t you gonna follow him?” 

sapnap shook his head. 

“i’ll give him time. he- he deserves it. he gets so much of it stolen from him, he deserves some for himself.” 

“half an hour,” quackity said, dismissively, “half an hour or i’ll go after him myself, and god knows he won’t enjoy that.”

sapnap snorted. 

“yeah, okay.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


george wanted to scream. he couldn’t scream, because his lungs wouldn’t work and he couldn’t  _ breathe  _ and he was walking walking walking and then he wasn’t walking, he was falling and he was on his knees and he was crying and he still couldn’t breathe, and it was like the whole fucking world had fallen in around him because dream had actually done it. he had actually done it. 

dream was in prison. his best friend had tried to kill a  _ child  _ in cold blood _. _

was he even his best friend anymore? did he really want to be best friends with an attempted murderer? he had  _ tried  _ to talk him out of it. he really did. he thought dream had agreed, he thought he was getting  _ better _ . 

he wheezed, trying to get air into his lungs, trying to quell the dizzying blackness around the edges of his vision. dimly, he could register the underbrush around his feet and the morning birdsong around him, but all he really felt was the searing pain in his chest, that tore him open from the inside and chucked his heart in a writhing mess on the floor. 

bringing his hands up to his face, he dug his nails into his forehead, grasping desperately at his skin in a frantic attempt to ground himself. he brought them down his face in aching swipes that drew blood but it wasn’t working, it wasn’t  _ working.  _ he was still gasping, and his lungs fucking  _ killed  _ with the effort of breathing, which should be so easy, but his lungs were caught in a vice-like grip that wouldn’t let up no matter how deephe dug his nails, regardless of the blood dripping down his face.

he stumbled to his feet, using the rough ground to push himself up, and fell onto a tree, leaning his whole body weight against it as he fought for oxygen. 

suddenly, it was like a switch had been flipped and he gasped, throat unclenching as he fell to the ground again in relief. his lungs filled all at once, and he whimpered pathetically against the ground as the fuzziness in his eyes cleared. his body shook with sobs, convulsing on the floor as his shoulders hit the ground repeatedly with each of his cries. 

what the fuck was wrong with him?

a second later, he was leaning against a tree and there was wood in his hand. oh. his hand was bloody, too. oh. 

chancing a look behind him, his stomach roiled at the sight of the stump behind him, wood splintered and stained a deep red colour. he turned to look at his hands and screamed, seeing the pitiful, torn up state of the two of them, and the splintered grove of trees around him. he couldn’t feel anything, couldn’t feel the pain like he should. 

_ well, fuck.  _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Dream**

**Brother, Son, Friend**

**1999 - ????**

**Always in our hearts.**

  
  


the gravestone was situated in the centre of a clearing, letting the golden light of the morning illuminate it through a canopy of trees. it wasn’t quite the embellished, regal piece you might expect for a man as powerful as dream, rather a rough piece of wood that looked as though it had been ripped from a tree without the help of any tools. maybe it had, judging by george sitting in front of it, cross legged with his head in his hands and no axe nearby. 

“he’s not dead, dude.” sapnap said gently, walking to the side of his friend and lowering himself to sit down. 

george sighed, not showing any sign of surprise sapnap was there. he lifted his head and stared at the wood, reading the words over and over again, like he was trying to ingrave it into his brain. lazily, he brought his hand up - sapnap winced at the state of it - and gestured at the words. 

“that dream is.  _ our  _ dream is.”

sapnap let out a breath, melting down onto the grass with his hands folded behind his head. gazing at the sky above, he let himself relax and turn his head slightly to look at george. 

“maybe-” sapnap started, thinking about it, “maybe he’s still in there, somewhere.”

george snorted, shaking his head and laying back onto the grass next to sapnap. “that’s the question, isn’t it? how much of the fucking, ship or whatever, is replaced till it’s not the same anymore? it’s fucking,” he waved his hands around above the two of their heads, “he’s not there anymore. not really.”

a pause. 

“fair.” the younger man said, scrutinising george carefully. 

another beat of silence. 

“maybe i could have saved him.” 

sapnap barely heard it, george mumbling as quiet as he was. he did though, and jolted in shock. 

“what?”

“he told me what he was going to do,” george confessed, refusing to look at his friend, “i talked him down, but he did it anyway. maybe if i had been there, i could have convinced him.”

the other man shook his head vehemently. “no, dude. he was too far gone at that point. nobody could have.” 

george hummed. 

“maybe.”

sapnap turned his head back to the sky. it was a clear day, barely any clouds in the air. that was unusual for this corner of the world, and the wildlife was thriving in it. 

smiling at the sound of a wood pigeon next to his head, the distinctive sound reminded of him of simpler times, summers spent in new worlds with only his two closest friends by his side. he almost laughed when he remembered one of their trio was a child murderer, now. 

“i feel like im stuck in the past, sometimes.” george broke the silence, and sapnap frowned. 

“what d’you mean?”

“like, all the time spent asleep. everyone else has moved on. they’ve all, i don’t know, they’ve written their memoirs and left their memories of him behind. i want to leave mine, you know?” 

sapnap hummed. 

“i guess. you don’t need to, though. you only found out a half hour ago. i certainly haven’t, and i was there!” 

george giggled in the way that only george can, and then shifted to lay side by side with his friend. 

“i know. i love you, man.”

“love you too. you want to sort out your hands?” 

it was only then that george seemed to remember the bloody state of them, and he brought them both above his head so he could see. 

it was a rather horrible sight, if sapnap was being honest. they were bloody as anything, and he could literally see the splinters sticking out. 

“nah.”

“oh.” 

george lowered his arm to lay around sapnap’s neck and turned onto his side, burying his head into the younger man’s neck. 

“i’m good like this for a bit.” 

sapnap smiled. the heat beating down on him was nice, weirdly, even though he was usually quite indifferent to the sun. this heat was cozy, so very different from the blistering burning of the nether, and the warm weight of his best friend by his side certainly helped. 

“yeah, me too.”

**Author's Note:**

> dont ask me to explain why he slept for a month cause idk
> 
> kudos and comments are pogchamp if you want :))


End file.
